Avi Blizovsky
Inside of a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft
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Russia will carry out all regular flights to bring passengers and cargo to the International Space Station throughout 2004, instead of NASA. This is what the CEO of the Russian Space Agency said on Friday.
Yuriy Kopetev, director of Russabihkosmos, said Russia expects to launch two manned Soyuz spacecraft next year, with space guaranteed for a crew that will include an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut on the space station.
The Russian space program is currently the only connection to the space station since the Columbia disaster, which caused NASA to ground the shuttles. The manned disposable spacecraft of the Soyuz model and the unmanned supply spacecraft of the Progress model are the only means of bringing crew and supplies to the station and dropping crews from it to Earth.
"The Americans say that they are planning to launch a shuttle for September or the beginning of October, but it will be a test flight," Koptev said. "And this means that we must continue to lend a hand to keep the space station constantly manned.
The Russians came back and complained that the extra work left them with funding problems. Koptev says that a spacecraft that will be launched in April 2004 will also carry an astronaut from the Netherlands in addition to the American and the Russian (except that he will return like the Spanish astronaut with the crew who ends his stay only a week later). The third seat for next fall's flight is still available. It may also eventually be manned by the European Space Agency. In any case, says Koftev, "there are already five candidates". and did not elaborate. Some observers predict that Russia will sell the third space to a private citizen who will pay for it, thus resuming the space tourism streak that was interrupted.
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